In order to bind the VIBlend DataGrid to indexed properties, you need to do the following:

1. Create DataTemplates that are bound to indexed properties.

        <DataTemplate x:Key="LastNameCellTemplate">
            <Grid>
                <TextBlock Text="{Binding [LastName], Mode=OneWay}"/>
            </Grid>
        </DataTemplate>

        <DataTemplate x:Key="FirstNameCellTemplate">
            <Grid>
                <TextBlock Text="{Binding [FirstName], Mode=OneWay}"/>
            </Grid>
        </DataTemplate>

2. Create a new DataGrid instance. Set the CellDataTemplate property of the DataGrid’s BoundFields to point to the DataTemplates.

        <viblend:DataGrid x:Name="dataGrid" Width="400" Height="280" AutoGenerateColumns="True">
            <viblend:DataGrid.BoundFields>
                <viblend:BoundField Text="FirstName" Width="150" CellDataTemplate="{StaticResource FirstNameCellTemplate}"/>
                <viblend:BoundField Text="LastName" Width="150" CellDataTemplate="{StaticResource LastNameCellTemplate}"/>
            </viblend:DataGrid.BoundFields>
        </viblend:DataGrid>

3.  Create a new class that will represent a single record of the DataGrid.

CSharp

public class Person : INotifyPropertyChanged
{   
    public Person()
    {
    }

    private Dictionary<string, object> data = new Dictionary<string, object>();

    public object this[string key]
    {
        get
        {
            if (!data.ContainsKey(key))
            {
                data[key] = null;
            }
            return data[key];
        }
        set
        {
            data[key] = value;
            if (this.PropertyChanged != null)
            {
                PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(""));
            }
        }
    }

    public IEnumerable<string> Keys
    {
        get
        {
            return data.Keys;
        }
    }

    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
}

VB .NET

Public Class Person
    Implements INotifyPropertyChanged
    Public Sub New()
    End Sub

    Private data As Dictionary(Of String, Object) = New Dictionary(Of String, Object)()

    Default Public Property Item(ByVal key As String) As Object
        Get
            If (Not data.ContainsKey(key)) Then
                data(key) = Nothing
            End If
            Return data(key)
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As Object)
            data(key) = value
            RaiseEvent PropertyChanged(Me, New PropertyChangedEventArgs(""))
        End Set
    End Property

    Public ReadOnly Property Keys() As IEnumerable(Of String)
        Get
            Return data.Keys
        End Get
    End Property

    Public Event PropertyChanged As PropertyChangedEventHandler
End Class

4.  Create a new generic List of Person objects and set the ItemsSource property of the DataGrid, in order to bind it to the list.

CSharp

       List<Person> listOfPersons = new List<Person>();
       for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
       {
           Person person = new Person();
           person["FirstName"] = "FirstName" + i;
           person["LastName"] = "LastName" + i;
           listOfPersons.Add(person);
       }
       this.dataGrid.ItemsSource = listOfPersons;

VB .NET

      Dim listOfPersons As List(Of Person) = New List(Of Person)()
      For i As Integer = 0 To 9
         Dim person As New Person()
         person("FirstName") = "FirstName" & i
         person("LastName") = "LastName" & i
         listOfPersons.Add(person)
      Next i
      Me.dataGrid.ItemsSource = listOfPersons

VIBlend DataGridView for WinForms offers multiple unique features that cannot be found in other Windows Forms data grid controls. These include multi-level hierarchies on rows and columns, rows grouping, pivot tables, and built-in OLAP capabilities. One of the main drawbacks of the traditional OLAP style rows layout is that it takes a lot of screen space. 

This could be improved by using the compact style layout. In this mode the rows of the pivot table are rendered in a tree-like structure.

Switching from default to compact style rendering is very easy. It requires setting the value of RowsHierarchy.CompactStyleRendering property to true:

C#
grid.RowsHierarchy.CompactStyleRenderingEnabled = true;
grid.RowsHierarchy.AutoResize();
grid.Invalidate();

VB .Net
grid.RowsHierarchy.CompactStyleRenderingEnabled = True
grid.RowsHierarchy.AutoResize()
grid.Invalidate()

You can switch between traditional and compact style rendering at runtime. The feature is also availalbe in VIBlend DataGrid for Silverlight.

In this blog post we will show you how to use the VIBlend DataGridView for WinForms in a WPF application.

The following code example creates a WinForms DataGrid control with Office2010Black theme in a WPF application. This example uses a WindowsFormsHost element to place the DataGrid control within the main window’s root  element. The WindowsFormsHost element could be found in the WindowsFormsIntegration.dll.

[xaml]

  <Window x:Class="HostWinFormsControlInWPF.Window1"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:viblend="clr-namespace:VIBlend.WinForms.DataGridView;assembly=VIBlendGrid"
        Title="Window1" Height="300" Width="300">
    <Grid>
        <WindowsFormsHost>
            <viblend:vDataGridView x:Name="VIBlendDataGrid" VIBlendTheme="OFFICE2010BLACK"/>               
        </WindowsFormsHost>
    </Grid>
</Window>

In order to bind the data grid, you need to do the following:  Click on the Data menu item in your Visual Studio, then select the “Add new DataSource” item.  Browse to the Nwind.mdb which ships with the WinForms controls installation, choose the Employees table and click finish. In the code behind, after the InitializeComponent call or in the Load event handler , bind the data grid to the Employees table.

            NwindDataSet dataSet = new NwindDataSet();
            EmployeesTableAdapter adapter = new EmployeesTableAdapter();
            adapter.Fill(dataSet.Employees);
            this.VIBlendDataGrid.DataSource = dataSet.Employees.DefaultView;
            this.VIBlendDataGrid.DataBind();

Here is the result:

We are proud to announce the second major release of VIBlend Controls for Silverlight.

With the new release, VIBlend has officially included in the suite four new controls – OutlookPane, NavigationPane, DateTimePicker and ScrollablePanel. Not only we introduced new controls, but we also improved the quality and functionality of the existing ones and added over 10 new examples to show how our controls work.

The Menu and Context Menu controls from the toolset are now provided free of charge to all registered users.

See our Silverlight Controls Live Demo and Download a free trial today.